Hey this is my first post on these forums, I have been reading them for quite some time now and I decided I wanted to learn digital painting, simply because it looks incredibly fun even if its just learning (and I know I have a lot to learn!).

I took a while to decide what exactly my goals are as far as learning all of this, but I am not sure where I should begin. My goal is to learn how to paint digitaly with photoshop and a tablet, concept art type scenes and portraits. I already know photoshop pretty good, I have been using it for the last 2-3 years for a lot of photo manipulation art, so I know quite a bit about the brush engine and such but I never used a tablet.

My main concern is that I think I definatly need to learn to draw so I can get my line art together before I start worrying about digitaly painting it. I havent draw anything on paper for a loooong time and I think I need to start on the right foot. I am pretty much starting from scratch, pencil and paper with no real knowledge of proportions or color values almost at all.

I am not sure where to start, I have sooooooooooooo much to learn it's really hard to decide on what I should focus first.

I hope my post made sense to somebody and sorry if my english is a bit slopy

Heya, welcome aboard. I would say that if you haven't drawn for a while, the obvious solution is to start drawing. I would also highly recommend starting to take classes for traditional still life and figure drawing - still life drawing first, figure drawing second. There's no magic pill, it's all just hard work and practice.

Down the line, start experimenting with digital painting. Wacom just released a new tablet:

When I started anatomy I began to watch the "The Structure of Man," after I finished the side view of the male head tutorials I wasn't sure if I was really progressing in anatomy. Then in my first 3D modeling class we had to do a quick concept sketch of a character for our first organic model and the side of the guys head came out amazing. So now I'm finishing the DVDs

I also recommend Wacom tablets I have one and it is a god send for digital sketching.

Hey thanks for your response, it is probably ideal to take classes. However is there any good sites to learn still drawing and figure drawing online? This is mostly going to be a hobby for me but I want to take it really seriously at the same time and try to become good.

hey. if u really wanna learn how to do figurative drawing or still lifes, the absolute best thing you can do is using real life objects or people. real reference is by far the best way of doing it. if theres no one u can find that will pose for u then use ur own hand. its always a great source. as for techniques, thats something you acquire over time. by looking, youl be well on ur way to being able to draw these things, whether its on paper or photoshop. one technique i might suggest for drawing is somethin like sfumato.. an old technique of applying layers over one another to achieve depth. just google the term and ul be able to get a good description of how it works. hope this helps!

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